Reapportionment

The supporters of Prop 11, the California ballot initiative to change how legislative districts, have an uphill fight. Redistricting reform, however well-conceived, always loses in California because of opposition from Democratic and Republican partisans. But every time I approach 100 percent certainty that redistricting will fail again, Don Perata gives me pause.

No politician in California better represents the dysfunction, immaturity and just plain incompetence of the state's elected leadership. Perata has been under investigation by the FBI for his entire time in leadership. (No charges have been brought yet). He's been the person who blocked any number of bipartisan compromises that would advance public policy in the state, most notably on water and health care. And he has misled the public about his intentions to advance political reform, specifically redistricting reform. Again and again, he promised that he and the legislature would produce a redistricting measure. He never followed through. 

California Congresswoman Laura Richardson would make the perfect poster child for the campaign for an initiative reforming redistricting. Her life and finances are a mess. The latest is that her home in Sacramento has been declared a "public nuisance." Her continued presence in Congress is an embarassment. But she'll win re-election easily, because there's no real competition in California. (Note to conspiracy theorists: her write-in opponent, Peter Mathews, has the same last name as your blogger, but we don't know each other and are not related).

I, for one, can't wait to see  the Prop 11 campaign broadcast commercials with Richardson's story, an example of the lack of accountability that California's gerrymander promotes. We could see the houses she's lost to foreclosure, the bills she's left unpaid, the car she abandoned in a repair shop. It's going to be perfect....

Except  there is not going to be such an ad.

Why? Because members of Congress are not covered by that redistricting reform initiative, scheduled for this November's California ballot.

Why is that? Well, to prevent leading members of Congress such as Nancy Pelosi from opposing the initiative.

How has that worked out? Pelosi and other Congressional Democrats are opposing the measure.

To quote Dark Helmet in Spaceballs, "evil will always triumph because good is dumb."

I'm still very dubious, but John Wildemuth makes the case on a San Francisco Chronicle blog. The main point is: money is rolling into the Prop 11 initiative to remove redistricting of state legislative districts from the hands of the legislature. (Congressional districts are, unfortunately, exempt). But opposition money has been very slow to materialize.

One word of warning to the Yes on 11 side. There's been talk about making this a populist campaign against the legislature and the powers that be. I don't think that will sell when you're getting by the state's elite, including Eli Broad, John Doerr and Angelo Tsakopoulous. Better to argue simply and honestly that this initiative might make the legislature work a little bit better, and leave it at that.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other California Congressional Democrats this week declared their opposition to Prop 11, the redistricting reform initiative on the state's November ballot. Yes, the initiative's prospects are bleak, but this particular endorsement is worth examining. Pelosi announced her opposition in a letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger, a major backer of the initiative. That letter (posted here on the California Majority Report, a Democrat site that also opposes the measure)  is highly -- and unintentionally -- revealing about Pelosi, her thinking and the out-of-touch mindset created by California's gerrymandering, which protects incumbents of both parties.

THE GROWING BALLOT: Friend of the blog Robert Greene has this excellent update on the rapidly expanding California ballot. The voters have done their part through signature gathering; now the legislature adds its own measure to the ballot.

HIGH SPEED RAIL: The much delayed bond measure establishing a high-speed rail system in California will finally appear on this November's ballot. But the legislature can't reach a compromise on oversight for the funding.

This piece from Capitol Weekly is a must-read. It profiles Courtni Pugh, the sharpest labor strategist I met during my admittedly brief time covering labor for the LA Times. It also reports that SEIU California may be close to backing the redistricting reform initiative on the November ballot. Such an endorsement could be a game-changer for that initiative, whose political prospects have not been good. And if SEIU is looking at such an endorsement, it's a good bet that the union has a lot of research and numbers that suggest that changing the reapportionment rules might make it easier to elect more labor-friendly politicians to office.

Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Weintraub writes today that politicians will lie to beat the redistricting reform initiative on the November ballot. But if Ted Costa's views are heard, they may not need to do much.

Ted Costa was the original proponent of both the recall of Gov. Gray Davis and of Prop 77, the failed redistricting initiative in 2005. In an email, he blasts the new initiative, Prop 11, as a "power grab," matching the rhetoric -- if not meaning -- of the measure's opponents.

Democrats and legislators have constituted most of the opposition to this point. But Costa is a Republican, and his argument, if it gets heard over the din of the presidential election and the gay marriage ban, could peel Republicans off the measure. Costa also betrays his own personal frustration with Common Cause and other backers of the measure; he's spent years trying to work with them on redistricting, and doesn't like their approach, from how the lines are drawn to the fact that Congressional districts aren't included. The measure only covers state legislative districts, and the districts for California's Board of Equalization.

Here's Ted's email:

I've been critical of the political strategy behind advancing redistricting reform by ballot initiative in this November's California elections. But looking at the web site put up by opponents of the initiative makes me think that perhaps it's worth fighting for reapportionment reform, regardless of the long odds.

In a display of chutzpah, the opponents -- state senate Democratic leader Don Perata and others -- have put together a web site called "Citizens for Accountability." The argument is Clintonian--it accuses redistricting reform supporters of doing precisely the thing (trying to protect politicians) that the opponents themselves are doing. Totally shameless.

Surprise, surprise. Democratic supporters of the redistricting initiative backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (a Republican) and former state controller Steve Wesly (a Democrat), are accusing Democratic regulars of trying to intimidate them. The party has come out against the redistricting measure.

Ted Costa, the Sacramento anti-tax activist best known as the original proponent of the 2003 recall of California Gov. Gray Davis, once told me that the recall was his second choice. He wanted to pass an initiative to strip California's state legislators of the power to draw their own districts. But the courts knocked a measure he drafted off the ballot. With the money he had raised for redistricting, he decided to launch the recall effort.

In 2006, looking back at all the political change his recall had produced, Costa looked back and said, "I would trade it all for a fair redistricting." Well, another redistricting initiative is headed to the ballot in California this November. And Costa doesn't like it at all.